When William Wallace Cook wrote Plotto: A new Method of Plot Suggestion for Writers of Creative Fiction, his introductory chapter made a lot of readers sit up and ask, "Huh?"

So Cook got do work and came up with an instruction booklet in the form of a seven-lesson course on how to use Plotto to help you overcome the thorny task of coming up with plots for short stories and novels.

The 32-page Plotto Instruction Book is impossible to find, and I counted myself very lucky when I discovered that the University of Oregon library in Eugene had a copy. A quick round-trip to the Emerald City later, I'm the proud possessor of xerox copies that I scanned and cleaned up for the benefit of anyone who has a copy of Plotto.

You can get your copy of the instruction booklet here, on my Web site.

If you've bounced off Plotto before (and many have), be sure to work through the entire instruction booklet. It makes quite a difference!

Amelia B. Edwards was a noted nineteenth-century author who wrote travel books and novels. She fell in love with Egypt in the 1870s and wrote a wonderful book on her travels, A Thousand Miles up the Nile. I liked it so much I brought it back into print!

More than that, she founded the Egypt Exploration Society, which still funds important archaeological research 125 years later. In her honor the EES has their Amelia Edwards Projects, which are clearly defined, affordable field projects that are funded by donations from members and supporters.

And she inspires more than research. Elizabeth Peters used Amelia Edwards as the model for her character Amelia P. Emerson in her wonderful and long-running series of Egyptology-themed murder mysteries (starting with Crocodile on the Sandbank).

That's influence that lasts and lasts!

People often ask me if chickens on free range need to be fed, or can they get what they need by foraging? And if they do need feeding, what kind of feed to they need? Just grain, or what?

In the old days, when people in town threw their garbage into the street and those in the country threw it out the back door, chickens and pigs ran around taking cleaning this up for you, and this kind of feeding would support some number of creatures, which would in time grow up and provide you with eggs or meat. On farms, the horses and cows would be spilling some of their grain, too, and other kinds of wastage would contribute to the chickens' diet.

Add some corn to their diet, and you get better results. This is pretty much how things stood on the average farm in 1900, where Milo Hastings reported that the average laying hen produced 83 eggs a year -- most of them in the spring. The hens would go broody and produce a batch of chicks, which under the circumstances would grow very slowly. If you were lucky, the cockerels would reach market weight 4-6 months later and the pullets would start laying in November, because if they weren't laying then they wouldn't start until spring.

Because the amount of feed you can find by foraging in the wintertime is slim to none, people sold all their non-essential chickens before Christmas and overwintered as few as possible. These carefully selected few still produced virtually nothing until spring because they were malnourished. On farms where grain was fed liberally, the chickens were merely vitamin- and protein-deficient, while on farms where chickens had to fend for themselves, they were starved for calories as well.

That's the old-fashioned way, the "natural" way. Yuck! So how can we make things a little more unnatural and a whole lot better?

This is where "balanced chicken feed" comes in. All the nutrients the chicken needs in one convenient package. When the concept was first introduced, nutritional science was in its infancy, so a "balanced diet" was missing some important elements. Vitamins hadn't been discovered yet, proteins weren't very well understood, and mineral requirements involved some hand-waving. And yet the concept of "Keep a trough full of balanced chicken feed in front of the chickens at all times" was a great success, and could almost double the production of the average flock, with most of the increase being in the fall and winter -- the time of high prices.

By trial and error, people figured out that "steamed beef scrap" gave good results, though they didn't know way. As it turns out, steamed beef scrap contained not only meat (which has all the protein and most of the vitamins a chicken needs), but significant amounts of bone meal as well, and this provided all the minerals for which the requirements were unknown. Add grain to this, and you have a balanced diet, right?

Well, not quite. Some of the vitamins were under-represented, and Vitamin D was entirely missing. Green feed takes care of all of this except for the Vitamin D, which chickens synthesize via UV light, just like humans, so if you give the chickens lots of green feed year-round and you get them to spend a lot of time outdoors, then you have a balanced diet!

Later, all the nutrients were figured out, and now chickens can be raised easily in total confinement, with only scientifically formulated chicken feed to eat. The nutritional requirements of chickens are better understood than those of any other creature, including humans.

(Sadly, the industry aims for least-cost feed formulation rather than maximum quality, so the diets fed to broilers and laying hens keep them productive, but the eggs and meat have far less nutritional value than they could. That's one reason why pastured eggs and poultry test so well nutritionally -- green plants are loaded with nutrients that allow the chicken and eggs to be much higher in vitamins and Omega-3 and lower in saturated fat.)

Over the years, every different method of feeding chickens was tested over and over, and the most consistent result was that if you kept a feeder full of high-quality chicken feed in front of the chickens at all times, you made a lot more money. That is true of every management system and every feeding system, across the board.

Supplemental feed like grain or scraps or garden waste is okay, and the chickens will eat a lot of it if it's palatable and less if it's not, but never take away the balanced chicken feed to try to force them to eat more of something than they want, because that's the surest way to lower productivity and profits.

Want to learn more about feeding chickens? Then you need to read Feeding Poultry by G. F. Heuser, which I reprinted because it's the most thorough and accessible book on the topic.

After many years out of print, I'm proud to reissue Ruth Stout's organic gardening classic: Gardening Without Work: For the Aging, the Busy, and the Indolent."

I've been a fan of Ruth's since I was ten years old, when her column was the first thing I read in each new issue of Organic Gardening magazine. Practical, funny, and irreverent, her books are even more compelling than her columns.

Gardening Without Work" introduced the "permanent mulch" system of gardening, which replaces weeding and plowing with a thick mulch of straw or whatever else is available. The mulch conserves water, smothers weeds, prevents erosion, and fertilizes the soil. Perhaps it was the inspiration for modern "no-till" farming? I don't know. Although
Ruth died thirty years ago, her writing has legions of fans, and you'll see why
when you read it!

You can order Gardening Without Work" from any online or brick-and-mortar bookstore. As I write this, Amazon.com is claiming that it's out of stock and they don't know when they'll get more, but in reality they always seem to ship within a week when they say this about my books, so don't let their conservatism put you off!

I'm taking two community college classes with my son Dan this term. For the first time since I graduated from Oregon State University in 1982, I have a student ID!

(How do they get pictures to come out so badly? Amazing!) Anyway, I'm looking forward to all sorts of student hijinks, all-night bull sessions, begging my mom for money ... the works!

We're taking a screenwriting class from the redoubtable Linda Hamner and an acting course from the inimitable Rod Davidson, both Hollywood professionals. Great classes, and the screenwriting class is starting to put ideas into my head...

This article about Victorian lady adventurers -- or "skirts on camels" is worth reading. It highlights the adventures of Amelia B. Edwards and several other maverick Victorian ladies with a thirst for adventure.

I've republished Edwards' A Thousand Miles up the Nile, her fascinating travel book about Egypt and Egyptology from the 1870s. Edwards was a famous author in her time, and went on to found the Egypt Exploration fund, which exists to this day.

While you'll enjoy reading her book for its own sake, it's made doubly delightful by its tie-in with Elizabeth Peters' Egyptology-themed Amelia Peabody mystery series, whose main character is clearly based on Amelia Edwards! This means that A Thousand Miles up the Nile acts as a must-read sourcebook for fans of this best-selling series.

I need your help! I've signed up for an exciting writing class in Corvallis, taught by an Emmy-award-winning TV writer/novelist/teacher, Linda E. Hamner. The problem is, if we don't find two more people by noon on Friday who are keen to learn about writing, it's going to be canceled!

The topic is "Introduction to Screenwriting," but this will be a fun sleigh ride for anyone interested in writing of pretty much any kind.

The class is on Mondays from 4:00-5:50 at Benton Center in Corvallis. It doesn't carry any college credit, alas, but that means it can't hurt your GPA, either. It runs for seven weeks and costs a measly $57. Give it a shot!

To register, or to find out more, check out the Linn-Benton Community College Schedule.

See you there!

Full class description: "Explore the basics and obtain the tools it takes to write a professional screenplay. Terminology, format, story, building a scene, character development, production considerations and dialogue will be discussed and analyzed. Emmy-award winning TV writer, novelist and teacher, Linda Elin Hamner will provide real-life insights into the workings of Hollywood and the entertainment industry. Film clips will be shown to illustrate screenwriting techniques."

Sure, you want to buy baby chicks this year, but what if you only want pullet chicks? None of those nasty crowing roosters? If so, you're like a lot of people. Corvallis, for example, has an ordinance forbidding roosters in town, but hens are okay.

The problem is that the feed stores normally have straight-run chicks. That is, boys and girls together. What do do? Time's a'wasting, since the baby chicks will hit the stores in a couple of weeks.

Learning chick sexing is difficult and disgusting. See this video from Dirty Jobs if you don't believe me!

Well, that was fun, but what does it have to do with do-it-yourself chick sexing at the feed store? I'll tell you. The feed store will have at least one of these breeds for sale:

• Rhode Island Reds
• New Hampshire Reds
• Production Reds

All these breeds have something in common: The chicks with chipmunk stripes on their backs are females! Well, maybe not all, but at least 95%. And if you pick only the ones with well-defined chipmunk strips, it's more like 100%.

Most people don't know this, so the chicks aren't likely to have been picked over by other customers. Just make the clerk pick out the ones with the racy stripes because "they're pretty," and don't take no for an answer. Voila! Sexed chicks at straight-run prices!

(People have asked me, "What do you mean, 'chipmunk stripes'?" You'll know 'em when you see em. Most of the chicks won't have any stripes down their backs at all. On some, the stripes on their backs will be faint, and others, they'll be clear. Get the ones with the most clearly defined stripes.

And if you think that's clever, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's one of the least useful facts in my book, Success With Baby Chicks. Just by reading this book, you become a chick-rearing expert. Imagine how much more pleasure you'll get when you're completely successful every time.

I read hundreds of poultry books, extension bulletins, research papers, and magazine articles when researching this book, stretching from 100 years ago to the present day. I discovered many useful facts and techniques that have been forgotten, like the chipmunk-stripe trick. And it's all been reduced to 155 clear and straightforward pages. You will reap the rewards of my years of work in a couple of hours!

Buy the book before you get your chicks, so you know what to do, not what you should have done.

When the economy started nose-diving, I told myself, "During bad times, you want more irons in the fire. This is a great time to expand my publishing business." So I went from four titles to thirteen in about eight months.

I had it all planned out. During bad times, people start yearning for simplicity and more control over their lives, and there's always a back-to-the-land movement. So I published three classic back-to-the-land books: Gold in the Grass, Ten Acres Enough, and We Wanted a Farm. These, I figured, would do very well. I also republished a motley collection of books just because I loved them, though in many cases I felt that maybe no one else would.

So what happened? A couple of my labor-of-love books became mainstays of my publishing business, while the back-to-the-land books have been relatively disappointing. Only Ten Acres Enough was anything to write home about, but even its modest success was eclipsed by Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, which instantly became my #1 seller, and A Thousand Miles up the Nile, which has nothing whatever to do with any of my other books!

So it just goes to show, you never can tell. You have to swing at the ball a lot more times than you hit it, so you should give yourself a lot of at-bats, rather than counting on a home run on the first swing. Heck, I almost didn't publish Fresh-Air Poultry Houses because it's sort of eccentric, but I told myself that it's eccentric in a good way -- charming and thought-provoking, and in touch with natural thinking -- and it's a good thing I did.

Seth Godin has an interesting blog post where he shows a chart by Tim Burton of all his failed projects -- lots and lots and LOTS of them. Even now, only a fraction of his projects actually get released.

So keep swinging, and don't bet the farm on any one venture. Most of 'em won't get very far, but some will.

Last year, in a fit of self-indulgence, I reprinted my first book, Through Dungeons Deep: A Fantasy Gamers' Handbook, which I wrote in college and was published by Reston Publishing in 1982.

Rather to my surprise, it has been selling briskly, and in spite of being a straight reprint, without a single word having been changed in 28 years, I'm getting testimonials like this one:

Robert,

Just a note to wish you and yours a happy holiday, and to tell you how much I enjoy "Through Dungeons Deep" (the reprinted edition). Although I'm a DM with many years of experience, I still find new and insightful ideas in every chapter. The bits about your personal gaming group and characters are especially fun to read as well. I look forward to recommending it to my friends, who will undoubtedly enjoy it every bit as much as I have.

Best wishes,

Todd Rooks
Barberton, OH

I'm grateful to be living in the Internet age, where self-publishing allows works that have long been out of print to find new audiences. I hope to bring many more books to light, delighting people with both their nostalgia value and their timelessness.